I heard Emotive bought Bob Carvers tube company

apparently true...have now seen it on 3 different sites.

http://emotivalounge.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=amps&action=display&thread=30007

Emotive and Emotiva are completely different companies. Emotiva has acquired Carver.

I have tried a couple of Emotiva amps and they were awful. Hopefully this won't ruin a pretty decent tube product?

A sad day in audio history.

This may not be a bad thing. If Bob Carver and Lonnie Vaughn of Emotiva can work on various amp designs together that can be great for audio enthusiasts on both sides of the financial spectrum. I'm thinking they may come up with amps that would rival Jolida or Rogue. I haven't looked into details of the acquisition but say if Emotiva would keep Bob Carver has head of his division? He gets control with the benefit of Emotiva's distribution, factories, etc etc. Emotiva gets access to his various Sunfire and other amp designs.

I wasn't a fan of the XPA-2 but for HT I love my UPA-7 amp. Also the USP-1 preamp is pretty good as well for under $400. Check out A'gon member Ferrari's review on the USP-1.